Tears Unnumbered Indeed
by Meepalicious
Summary: Nico di Angelo, in teaching himself to shadow-travel, ends up in the middle of a browned and dead field of grass. Sensing death, he has a vision of a vicious and ancient battle and has a brief encounter with the ghost of a being older than Greece. Rated T for a depiction of the Nirnaeth Arneodiad.


Tears Unnumbered Indeed

**DISCLAIMER: I do not own the Silmarillion or any of its characters, nor do I own any of the Percy Jackson books or characters. Essentially, I don't own anything. **

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><p>Nico awoke to a dark, cloudy grey sky in a place he did not recognize. <em>Ugh. <em>he thought. _I must have gotten lost again. Where am I this time? And how long have I been out? _Learning to shadow travel had proved to be very difficult for the son of Hades, and had involved a great many unexpected detours and bouts of exhaustion after shadow traveling. Or both; more often than not, it was both.

Nico shivered against the cold of the unknown place as he rose and began to look around. He was in a field, and much of the grass there was brown and dead. The clouds above roiled in the wind of an oncoming storm, and as he watched it, Nico hoped he would be able to regain enough strength to shadow travel away from there (wherever _there _was) before the storm hit. The place was silent and still save for the occasional gust of wind that whistled in Nico's ears and through the grass. _This is eerie...Even for me. _he conluded.

Suddenly, Nico's attention was caught be a large nearby hill. It seemed to give off a feel more eerie and unsettling than the rest of the area. Though what caught Nico's attention more than the strange feel was that grass still grew green on the hill. Frowning to himself, Nico walked towards it and stopped at the bottom of the hill.

His frown deepened when the odd, spine-chilling feeling he had upon arriving in this strange place intensified and morphed into something he could place a name to. _Despair. This place is full of and eerie sort of despair and death. I can sense it. _Nico thought. He winced slightly when he stepped on something sharp, and felt sick when he realized he had stepped on one of many ancient weapons, rusted almost beyond recognition and scattered around the hill.

Nico then stumbled slightly and collapsed to his knees at the top of the hill. His head spun with the sheer amount of death he sensed from the place. Suddenly his vision swan until it was replaced with a view from the place nearby where he had woken up, the colors toned down and the entire scene somewhat blurry. Storm clouds still rolled overhead, and Nico would later swear that he heard thunder.

The clashing of swords and the sound of people shouting rang in Nico's ears in a morphed, underwater sort of way as he finally tore his eyes away from the turbulent sky above. He almost wished he hadn't. A vicious battle raged around him, between men, men that looked like men but were taller, faster, more agile and seemed to glow faintly with an inner light, and what Nico thought were some of the most gruesome humanoid monsters he had ever seen. The noise seemed to grow louder and louder until Nico clamped his hands over his ears and was convinced his eardrums would burst.

A vicious roar then pierced through the cacophony and Nico looked up sharply. An enormous beast made of shadow and flame gave another roar and brought its flaming sword down hard. Nico craned his neck to see, and suddenly his vision focused on one of the men that wasn't quite a man.

The not-man was tall, dressed in silver-colored armor that shone dimly in the fire of the shadow-beast and with his long, dark hair falling out of what Nico guessed were braids at some point. The not-man lifted his sword to block the heavy blow and slowly stood, pushing the flame-sword away from himself with a fearsome shout and advancing on the beast that must have been twice his size.

Nico's eyes widened and he shouted in the man's direction when he saw another flame-shadow beast advance from behind. However, the man did not hear him and the second creature pinned his arms down and held him still. The man struggled and shouted against the second beast, but it did no good. The first beast then lifted an axe made of flame and brought it down hard on the man's head. Nico turned away and winced. He heard the helmet the man had worn rent and the not-man give a final shout, this one of pain. He did not need to look again to know the not-man was dead, his skull likely cracked open.

When Nico opened his eyes again, he was back on the hilltop, though his vision remained blurred. It took Nico a moment to realize that it was his own tears that blurred his vision now. He watched one single tear roll off the end of his nose onto the ground, and angrily wiped the rest away while saying a silent prayer for all those he knows must have died in the battle-vision.

Suddenly he felt that he was not alone. Nico looked up and was vaguely surprised to see a ghostly form of the not-man from the vision he had just had. The not-man still wore his impressive silver armor, and Nico could now see that his helmet had small eagle wings coming off the back, slightly to the sides. His long dark hair was braided again with gold threads running through them and for the first time, Nico saw his pointed ears. The not-man sighed deeply, smiling sadly at Nico, though his eyes showed great despair, and the grey form of the ghost wavered slightly.

"Tears unnumbered indeed." The not-man ghost said, a slightly sarcastic edge to his voice. Somehow though, Nico knew it was not directed at him. Before Nico could ask what that meant, another gust of wind blew, and the ghostly figure was gone.

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><p><strong>Author's Note: Here...Have a short, creepy, heart-wrenching one-shot about Nico teaching himself to shadow-travel, getting lost, finding the Haudh-en-Ndengin or Hill of the Slain, and having a brief one-sided meeting with Fingon's ghost. I honestly don't even know where this came from, but the creepy, ghostly plot bunny would not leave me be. Read and Review please! <strong>


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